Music Pirates Also Biggest Buyers

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File-sharing services have existed for more than a decade, from
the earliest days of Napster in the late 1990s to today’s Pirate
Bay and BitTorrent. Users know file sharing is an easy, fast and
free (though not necessarily legal) way to find and download
digital music.

These services have also been the nemesis of the entertainment
industry. For years, the industry has said file sharing is a
major drag on its bottom line. Several studies have disputed
those claims, though, and two recent ones seem to agree. These
new studies say file sharers are actually more likely to purchase
digital music than their counterparts who don't share files.

One study by Columbia University researchers looked at the habits
of file sharers in both the U.S. and Germany. The second, by the
Dutch Institution for Information Law and CentERdata, surveyed
file sharers 16 years and older in the Netherlands.

“Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous
other studies. The biggest music pirates are also the
biggest spenders on recorded music,” Joe Karaganis, vice
president of the American Assembly at Columbia University,
wrote of the findings.

The Dutch study echoes Karaganis’ argument. There researchers
found that file sharers were four times more likely than everyone
else to have purchased digital music, and only a third of all
file sharers did not pay for any of the music they’d downloaded.